An agency-by-agency look at Trump's plan to overhaul government

President-elect Trump’s victory promises to bring wholesale shakeups to government operations, as the former commander-in-chief re-enters office with far-ranging ideas to change agency missions. 

Trump has vowed to relocate agency headquarters, end the merit-based civil service for some segments of the federal workforce, require government employees to take constitutional exams and other changes to executive branch management. Some of his more signature policy ideas, however, will also require sweeping changes to how agencies operate. 

Trump has vowed to sidestep any efforts to block his agenda, in part by fighting in court or Congress to revoke the 1974 Impoundment Control Act. That law prohibits the executive branch from withholding Congressionally appropriated funds for policy reasons. The president-elect has not yet said whether he would institute a governmentwide hiring freeze upon taking office, as he did in 2017. 

If he opts to follow transition law, which he has so far eschewed, Trump will in the coming days or weeks deploy teams of personnel into agencies to get career staff up to speed on his plans. Here is a look at some of the agencies likely to be most impacted: 

Homeland Security Department

DHS, perhaps more than any other agency, sits at the center of Trump’s vision for government. He has promised mass deportations of undocumented immigrants on a scale never before seen in U.S. history. To do so, he will look to grow DHS’ immigration related agencies, deputize the National Guard and alter asylum policy to allow for more expedited removals. Trump has promised to hire 10,000 additional Border Patrol agents, saying he would ask Congress to approve a 10% across-the-board raise for all agents and implement recruitment and retention bonuses of $10,000 for new hires and existing staff. Reaching that goal could prove difficult, as Border Patrol has failed to keep pace with attrition in recent years despite offering incentives double or, in some cases, triple what Trump has proposed. 

The asylum changes and likely end to President Biden’s efforts to utilize parole, Temporary Protective Status and a new application, CBP One, to boost legal migration will force policy changes at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and other agencies. Trump has vowed to empower Immigration and Customs Enforcement to have much broader authority in making immigration arrests within the country. 

Education Department

Put simply, Trump wants to eliminate the department. Education has been in the crosshairs of numerous politicians since its creation in 1980. President Reagan pledged to eliminate it, as have Republican lawmakers ever since in numerous failed bills. Trump’s Education secretary in his first term, Betsy DeVos, said after her tenure the agency she led “should not exist.”

As president, Trump repeatedly sought to eliminate 19 mostly small, independent agencies, but Congress ignored those proposals. Efforts by administrations of both parties to dissolve agencies have been unsuccessful for decades. Trump has backup plans even if he cannot eliminate the department entirely. 

“On day one, we will begin to find and remove the radicals, zealots, and Marxists who have infiltrated the federal Department of Education, and that also includes others, and you know who you are,” Trump said. “Because we are not going to allow anyone to hurt our children.”

Veterans Affairs Department

Under Trump, VA expanded its use of private sector health care for veterans through the passage of the MISSION Act. Trump has frequently touted the measure as an expansion of private care on the government’s dime as a key accomplishment in his first term. Biden has continued to implement the law and grow VA’s “community care” program, while also dramatically expanding VA’s internal capacity and coverage. 

Project 2025, a policy shop set up by former Trump administration officials from which Trump has tried to distance himself, has called for expanded use of private care. It also said VA should once again seek to identify underutilized facilities to close, an effort Congress authorized in 2018 but killed in 2022 after the Biden administration sought to implement it.

Trump also signed the VA Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act into law, which sought to make it easier to fire poorly performing or malfeasant VA employees. The law subsequently suffered a series of setbacks in federal court and oversight boards, forcing the Biden administration to eventually walk back its use. Trump has also promoted that law and said it provided key authorities for holding employees accountable, though Project 2025 said Congress should sunset the law as the whistleblower protection office it launched has created redundancies. 

The group also said the Veterans Benefits Administration should automate and outsource claims processing, as hiring at VBA is too expensive. VBA has processed a record number of claims in recent years. 

Internal Revenue Service

President Biden transformed IRS by signing the Inflation Reduction Act into law. The measure provided $80 billion to the agency over 10 years to beef up enforcement, improve customer service and modernize its technology. Congressional Republicans have sought to revoke that funding ever since, pledging to repurpose that money for other purposes. IRS has added more than 10,000 employees under Biden and Commissioner Danny Werfel, who is in the midst of serving a five-year term, has said he plans to grow that total by another 10,000 to a workforce of more than 100,000. 

Werfel has already warned that without an extension of boosted IRS funds, the agency will start issuing separation incentives, furloughs and, as a last resort, layoff notices to employees by 2026. If money is more immediately revoked, that timeline could be expedited. Project 2025 called for Congress to reverse IRS’ hiring spree to prevent it from becoming “much more intrusive” and imposing costs on the American people. 

Werfel has boasted that the IRS hiring surge has significantly improved customer service and, by focusing on high-wage and corporate tax cheats, brought in significantly more revenue to the U.S. Treasury. 

Health and Human Services Department

Trump has pledged to turn over control of public health agencies to Robert Kennedy Jr., who has consistently espoused conspiracy theories related to vaccines and nutrition. On Wednesday, Kennedy told MSNBC he would “in some categories” clear out civil servants currently serving. He conceded, however, he would not seek to eliminate any offices in cases that would require congressional approval. 

Trump has vowed to create a commission of “independent minds” to investigate the root causes of childhood illnesses. He recently said Kennedy can do “whatever he wants” at public health agencies. 

State Department

The institution charged with implementing America’s foreign policy experienced the second largest number of civil service losses of any department during Trump’s first administration. 

State’s civil service under Biden has returned to its pre-Trump level, and Marcia Bernicat, the director general of the Foreign Service and head of Global Talent Management Bureau, told Government Executive in July that she’s hopeful such progress could be sustained under a new administration. 

Still, Project 2025 takes an adversarial tone toward the department. 

“There are scores of fine diplomats who serve the president’s agenda, often helping to shape and interpret that agenda. At the same time, however, in all administrations, there is a tug-of-war between presidents and bureaucracies — and that resistance is much starker under conservative presidents, due largely to the fact that large swaths of the State Department’s workforce are left-wing and predisposed to disagree with a conservative president’s policy agenda and vision,” wrote Kiron K. Skinner, who was a senior official at the department during Trump’s first term. 

She recommended increasing the number of political appointees at State. 

EPA

EPA is in the midst of a hiring surge and, in preparation for a possible return to a Trump White House, employees received protections against political interference in their latest union contract. 

However EPA has long been a target of Republicans, and Trump and his allies have said they’re planning on reversing environmental regulations and rescinding climate funds in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. 

Mandy Gunasekara, who served as chief of staff at EPA during Trump’s first administration, told The New York Times that a second Trump term would “tear down and rebuild” the agency’s structure. 

Project 2025, of which Gunasekara was a contributor, proposed that EPA “downsize by terminating newest hires in low-value programs” while “identifying relocation opportunities” for Senior Executive Service personnel. The initiative suggested EPA slash its budget and reduce its total headcount. 

Justice Department

On the campaign trail, Trump regularly complained that Biden’s Justice Department was prosecuting him, although the cases against him were pursued by a special counsel. But Trump himself has repeatedly talked about using the DOJ to go after his political enemies. 

Wary of past appointees who didn’t fulfill his wishes, Trump could install more loyalists in the department, which could significantly damage DOJ’s independence. 

Trump also said he would repeal a Biden executive order promoting equity programs in the federal government, which he characterized as discriminatory, and instruct the DOJ “to investigate the unlawful domination and discrimination and civil right abuses carried out by the Biden administration” under the order. 

Interior Department

During Trump’s first stint in office, he moved the Bureau of Land Management headquarters to Colorado — an action that Biden reversed upon taking office. Project 2025 recommends moving BLM back to Colorado as well as relocating other federal agencies. 

Under Trump, Interior sought to reassign much of its Senior Executive Service workforce. The shakeup led to widespread confusion and allegations the department was retaliating against employees working on issues that were not Trump administration priorities, such as climate change.